CAIRN

Ch 4 - The Names

"Okay, stand up, let's get going," said the shorter man. Thea didn't respond, she just looked at him.

"Oh please," said the other man, the blond man " you just don't know how to talk to 'em do you?" He pointed at Thea with his hand, "just look at it-- err, her, look at her." Thea was too stunned to be offended. "She's terrified! You can't just have her come with us like this. Here, let me try to smooth the situation."

The shorter man made an expression that was probably meant conv anger or disdain but his face was too strange to be readable. The taller man, on the other hand, contorted his face into a toothy smile that was too wide and energetic to be comforting.

"Helloooo! What is your name?" spoke the blond man, keeping his unsettling smile and making no pauses to let Thea answer, "do you want to be our friend? Good! Come with us!"

Thea looked even more bewildered than before.

"Okay, I give," said the blond man, dropping his smile, "I don't know how to talk to it-- her, I mean her."

"You wanna just grab her and leave?" the short man said. The blond man hesitated.

"Sure, whatever," he replied.

"No!" screamed Thea.

The room fell quiet. Dust slowly settled around the three wide-eyed figures.

"Who-Who are you?" said thea, her voice barely louder than the wind outside her window.

The two men looked at each other. "Oh! I am...uh..." the blond man said, seemingly looking for answers in his cohort's face, "R-Ro- Rolfen? Yes, that's it, my name's Rolfen. And this is..."

"Oh, how about uh," the short man's eyes darted across the room, landing on a candle. "Wick."

"Yeah! Rolfen and Wick. That's us alright!" Rolfen said with an uneasy chuckle.

Thea just breathed. "Okay. Now can you leave? Please?"

The two men looked at each other again.

"No, we can't, actually. Not without you," said Wick. Rolfen nodded.

"I won't come with you," Thea said.

"Oh don't be stupid," Wick spat, "You met the old ones last night didn't you? You think they'll just let you walk around with that thing?" Wick pointed at the stone Thea had left on her bedside table.

Thea grabbed the stone, her hands tensing up upon touching its could surface. "If this is what you want, just take it," she said, starting the motion of throwing it at Wick.

Rolfen and Wick ducked violently, covering their faces and pleading her to stop.

"Stop! Stop! We can't touch it either," said Rolfen, "look, you just have to believe us here. We'll get you out of this mess."

"But you are this mess!" yelled Thea, "It's you I want to get rid of."

The two men laughed.

"Oh no, you don't think other things will come looking after that?" Wick said, "The old ones are merely one of the parties after these things, they also happen to be the ones that got to you first and our employers."

"I thought there'd only be one envoy," said Thea, looking them both up and down.

"They couldn't agree on who to send, so they decided to send two of their best," said Rolfen, puffing his scrawny, bony chest.

"We're here to get you to rescind ownership of the stone," added Wick, turning away from Rolfen.

"Okay," sputtered Thea "I rescind it, now leave."

The two men laughed again.

"It's not that easy," said Wick between chuckles, "rescinding ownership of transplanar objects requires a ritual."

"Yeah, a ritual performed in the right place too," chimed in Rolfen, "the guy that owned it before you was on his way to perform that very ritual. He ended up rescinding ownership of it in the more...violent way."

"So if I go with you and we do this ritual, I you and whatever other creeps are after this thing will never bother me again?" Thea asked.

"You have our word," said Wick.

Thea squinted. She inspected those two weird faces carefully.

"I swear I'll do...horrible things!" she said, waving her hands up and down in what she hoped would be an intimidating motion, "yeah, horrible things if you make up some more craziness once we get to this ritual place"

This was met with silent nods from the men. With that, Thea stood up, shook the dust off her dress and her hai, pushed the two men out the door and exited right after them.